THE number of people approved to sell alcohol in Scotland has soared by around 12,000 in the past two years.
New Government statistics shows that by 2012/2013 52,800 people had personal licences. It means they have been vetted by the authorities and permitted to take charge of everything from a supermarket to a country pub selling liquor.
That had risen from 47,700 the previous year and from just over 40,000 in March 2011.
Industry sources say the figures are indicative of improving standards within the licensed trade, with the likely explanation being bigger operators putting more staff through the system.
But the huge growth on the number of approved individuals is not mirrored in a rise in premises selling liquor, with the number actually dropping slightly in the last year.
The overall number of premises licences in force on 31 March 2013 stood at just over 16,200, down about 150 on the previous year.
The vast majority of the drop in premises licences were in the capital.
The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 came fully into force in September 2009 and this release reflects the third full year of operation under the new licensing arrangements.
For the first time since the statistics changed with the new Act, Glasgow has overtaken Edinburgh as the city with the most licences, with 1745 compared to 1725 in the capital.
Edinburgh has dropped by 126 licences, while Glasgow has dropped by just three.
One prominent trade source said: "The fact that the number of licences are remaining steady reflects newer, better operators coming in to the market.
"It may be symptomatic of a move away from just pure sales of alcohol towards food and accommodation."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article